by yerton

Created on: May 04, 2008   Last Updated: June 13, 2009

I still remember my first shopping cart. It was back in the heady days of the late 1990's when the internet was still growing exponentially and banks were frantically trying to reinvent themselves for this new market. I paid a small fortune to a major UK bank for nothing more than a glorified credit card terminal on my computer screen. The idea was that a customer would telephone or fax me from a remote location with their credit card details and address, I would type these details into the computer and the bank would authorize the payment. It literally took 60 days for the cash to arrive in my bank account, but in the meantime I could send the goods. This was the "price" I had to pay to enter the digital age.

Thank goodness things have moved along a pace since then. The rapid expansion of global websites such as eBay and Amazon has driven online payment processes to keep up with the new requirements of the e-buyer. Nowadays one may install a shopping cart on a website with an absolute minimum of cost and fuss. Of course there are still global e-commerce solutions for websites, such as Worldpay or Netpay, which are basically extensions of the bank clearing system. But the really exciting developments over the last few years have been internet only banking systems that have opened up secure e-commerce to the truly mass market.

Initially there were a multitude of minor players in the e-commerce market such as NetBanx and the in house eBay payments system, but one major system called Paypal very quickly achieved world domination with the simplicity and security of their online system of transmission of money. Paypal allows users to link existing bank accounts to email addresses to credit cards. This means that a person in one part of the world can simply upload cash from their bank account to their Paypal account, and then email it inside of Paypal to a recipient at the other side of the world. They then simply download the money to their bank account.

The logical extension of this Paypal system is that you can "request" money by sending a simple email from your account in Paypal, or send an invoice. The recipient of the email request opens the email and can follow the link to make an online payment by using their Paypal account or their card. What could be simpler?

It is true that Paypal is quite expensive, fees vary in accordance with what type of account you hold and the value of the transaction, but for simplicity and security there is no finer system in the world. There are no setup costs, and unlike the traditional banking systems that preceded it, you can accept money almost instantly. Furthermore, Paypal is reputed to be the world's most secure banking system. I have certainly never had any issue of note with the system.

I have successfully traded on eBay (I am a Powerseller, user name also yerton) for eight years. For the majority of this time I have used Paypal. I now use no other system, as I certainly have come to believe that this is the simplest, securest and most efficient way of accepting payments online, and I would commend it to you if you are considering establishing an online business.

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